Process

Whether it’s your dream wedding, a beautiful baby, a bespoke holiday card, or a once-in-a-lifetime event, we can help you express your unique vision.

Ordering from Our Shop

If you’re looking for a baby shower invitation, a simple thank-you card, gift tags, or holiday card, browse our shop of ready-made designs, which range from elegant to whimsical. Any item in the shop can also be customized for a personal touch.

Elements of Your Suite

From there, you can start adding and customizing. Commonly used items include save-the-date cards, programs, reception cards, maps, table cards, menus, and thank-you notes. We offer a variety of different elements you can select to personalize and commemorate your special day.

Designing Your Suite

Once you’ve selected your items, you’ll need to choose how to design, print, and present them.

Design:

You can browse our range of beautiful designs, or we can work with you to come up with something absolutely unique to you and your occasion. Custom illustration services are also available.

For added sparkle, pop, and luster, you may add ribbons, metallic stock, foil, edge painting, wax seals, and even crystals.

Printing:

We offer printing options to suit your needs and budget.

Little Dove Design specializes in letterpress printing. In this painstaking and handcrafted process, the press is set up with printing plates made of either copper or polymer. Papers are hand-fed into the press one at a time and watched over very carefully. When the press closes, the pressure from the inked plate produces a relief print on the page. This creates a tactile deboss — letters which can be seen and felt. The press is then washed down and made ready for each additional ink, as it only prints one ink at a time. This beautiful age-old technique produces a finished product that is prized for its exquisite definition of type and artwork.

We also offer digital printing of our lovely designs. This process eliminates the need for printing plates, as designs are printed directly from the computer file itself. Unlike letterpress, digital printing leaves behind a flat image without any texture. There are two types of digital printing: laser and inkjet. Lasers use heat and toner to transfer an image to paper, while inkjets spray the liquid colors onto the page to create the design. We often recommend digital printing to couples who are concerned about budget but still wish to have beautifully designed stationery items.

Our letterpress paper is 100% recycled cotton, available in White, Pearl White, and Cream, in two weights. Digital paper offerings include Felt, Cotton, and Smooth textures in White and Cream colors.

While you may order letterpress and digitally printed items for the same event, it is very difficult to match colors exactly between the two printing processes, and you may not always get consistent results.

Presentation:

There are many items to help you put your best foot forward when presenting your guests with the invitation to your wedding.

Little Dove Design offers pocket folders to keep all items together and present your wedding invitation elegantly. Another option is an inner/outer envelope combination. The inner envelope adds another layer of formality and is customarily addressed with the names of exactly who is invited to the wedding. This is a great help in clearing up the question of children attending. Belly bands, which are a wide strip of paper wrapped around the center of the invitation, can also be used to hold all the elements together. These can be made from colored paper or printed with a special quote, monogram, wedding date, or artwork.

Ordering Your Suite

Now that you’ve decided on your design and presentation, here’s how you order.

This will bring you to a form, where you can tell us what you’re looking for. We’ll review your request within 48 hours and then contact you with a quote.

After we receive your order and all the information about your event, we’ll design your personalized suite. When it’s done, we’ll send you a proof for your review. Printing and delivery times can vary, but the entire process generally takes six to eight weeks from the initial order. You can see our Ordering Policies page for more detailed information.